"What did you say? You can't reach Stray Dog? And the Deino is gone as well?"
Locke's eyes went wide and his voice turned hard.
"How did this happen?"
"I... I don't know."
The man who had come in answered him meekly. He really did not know.
"Be clearer about it. When did you lose contact?"
Locke pressed him.
"Two hours ago."
"Get the men moving, now. Look into it. Best of all, find out who is behind the mischief, and whether it is aimed at us."
Locke had his composure back, and gave out the tasks then and there. This touched on the whereabouts of a pseudo-legendary Pokémon, and on his complete control of the S.S. Anne besides.
"Sir."
The men answered him and filed out, and began their enquiries.
At that same time Vance was still in the little box, taking part in the auction.
"Next is a treasure called the Deep Sea Orb, the Water-type essence of the deep ocean. It can help a Pokémon force a breakthrough in strength, and it will raise aptitude by a certain amount as well."
The handsome woman on the block was presenting the deep-sea treasure that another attendant held up in her hands, a hazy blue, with a faint mist of water forming about it.
"You are all people who know what you are looking at, so I will not waste words. The Deep Sea Orb, reserve price one million Poké Dollars, raises of no less than ten thousand Poké Dollars. The bidding begins now!"
The auctioneer was brisk about it and made no mystery of the thing.
There was no need for mystery, in truth. There was a great deal in this sale, and a fair number of lots worth more than this Orb; and the people in the seats were of a strong and capable sort, which made it needless as well.
"One million, one hundred thousand."
"One million, one hundred and fifty thousand."
"One million, two hundred and fifty thousand."
"One and a half million."
...............
"Three million Poké Dollars!"
Not long after it began the bids were coming from all round the hall, and the Orb was quickly up past three million.
At that price the number of people bidding thinned out.
Vance thought about it, pressed the button in the box and entered a price of three and a half million, bidding it straight out.
"The honoured guest in Box B-10 bids three and a half million. Is there anyone to follow? If not, this Orb goes to that honoured guest. The Deep Sea Orb raises aptitude — for a Water-type Pokémon it is a treasure not easily come by."
Then one more bid came from the floor.
Vance went on following it, and in the end took the Deep Sea Orb for four million, two hundred thousand.
Once it was knocked down someone came promptly to bring the thing up, and when Vance had verified it he paid by card.
"At that concentration it's only good for Advanced and Elite. For Gym-class it's next to nothing."
Nolan gave it a glance and passed his judgement.
He had an eye, at any rate. The deep-sea treasure was good enough, but its years were on the low side.
"It's enough for me. If a Gym-class Pokémon could use it, it wouldn't have stopped at that price."
Vance knew perfectly well that four million was dear for the thing, but he could accept it. You did not come across one often, and his Gyarados needed it just now; a little more money was neither here nor there.
With Pokémon in hand the money would come back soon enough.
Vance had another way of getting hold of treasures, which was to exchange Battle Points for them in the system.
But as a rule, what he could get in the real world he got in the real world. He kept his Battle Points for emergencies, and for the times when some particular treasure was needed and he could produce it on the spot.
Having taken the Deep Sea Orb, Vance was very easy about the rest of it, bidding on the later lots when they interested him but without any great urgency — though he did take three more treasures, and spent very nearly all the money he had on him.
The three were meant for the Aerodactyl and the other two. For the Slaking there was a pair of gauntlets, high-technology gauntlets developed by the famous Silph Co., which added to a Fighting-type Pokémon's combat strength.
The Slaking made its living with those two fists of its these days, so it would get the use of them.
The other two were called Volcanic Crystal Carbon and Rough Stone, and both had the effect of sharpening a Pokémon's sense of energy and quickening its development.
That way each of them had a present, and nobody could say he had favoured one over another.
..............
"Sorry about this, brother. I'll be taking the Deino. And you ought to thank me, at that — without my help you'd never have got a pseudo-legendary out of the strongroom in the first place."
A man of honest appearance, twenty-seven or twenty-eight, was disposing of a body; then he went off through the liner like someone who knew his way about her.
"I was demoted for failing at my duties, so I was cleared of suspicion in the first round of it. Heh heh. That Stray Dog had a nerve on him, daring to steal a pseudo-legendary — but it's mine now." Nils's face was all smiles. He was a guard on the S.S. Anne's strongroom, and had been suspended over the loss of the Deino.
Not that it mattered. He had trailed the man in secret, killed this sailor called Stray Dog while his back was turned, taken the pseudo-legendary off him, and afterwards disposed of the bodies of the man and his Pokémon.
"Do I hand it in? Or do I keep it quiet and keep it? This is a pseudo-legendary. I couldn't earn this in a lifetime. With this I might make Gym-class, even Elite-Four-class! It really is..."
Hunger came up stronger and stronger in Nils's face, and his eyes burned as he looked at the luxurious ball in front of him. Looking at it, he was looking at his prospects, looking at his future.
Heaven knows he was twenty-eight this year, and had been a Trainer for twelve of them, and after all that scrambling and struggling he was only an Advanced-class Trainer — and that was as far as the road went.
But now, here, heaven had sent him a great gift: a pseudo-legendary. Handle this properly and he was made.
Yes. After the struggle with himself, he chose to hide the pseudo-legendary; and knowing the S.S. Anne as he did, there was room to work with.
Money stirs the heart — and this was a pseudo-legendary besides.
He came carefully into a room and opened the Poké Ball. In a flash of red light a creature appeared before him, its body blue, its eyes covered by black fur that ran down its neck and nearly to its limbs.
The instant he was out he flopped down listlessly on the floor and lay there without moving, with no fight in him at all, and none of the edge a Dragon-type usually has.
"Hello, hello, Deino. I'm... I'm your Trainer."
Looking at the Deino, Nils's heart gave a wild thump, and he went forward to greet him.
At the same time he was puzzled. What was wrong with this Deino? He was not hurt. Why did he look so beaten down?
Still, he was patient about talking to the Deino, and he brought out several Intermediate energy cubes he could not bring himself to eat and set them down in front of him, watching him ingratiatingly.
The Deino gave them a sniff and went still again. There was no goodness in the things and they were not to his taste. He was not going to eat them. After that he went back to staring at the ceiling with dull eyes.
Because a strange thing had happened to his body, and his strength had fallen away to nothing, and he could not hold his head up in the Valley of Dragons, and his dear Beauty had left him, and the other dragons bullied him.
He had been out in the valley clearing his head when a black cloth sack came down out of the sky, and after that he knew nothing.
Passed from place to place, he had ended up here.
Never mind. He was tired. Let it be.
He was a scrap-heap dragon anyway, living off the name of a pseudo-legendary for his meals.